Question 1. Or, for curators, how do the curatorial choices you have made respond to this set of concerns? The past may resemble a future possibility and the present melts under our projected ideals. The works presented in the Serbian Pavilion carry a hint of irony; they are playful, looking cheerful at a first glance until a reflection on the precarious aspects of existence starts to emerge.
Question 2. MB and IW What does it mean for you as an artist, a curator, or a curatorial team to represent your country? How does the structure of the Venice Biennial, with its individual national pavilions, influence your choices as a participant? What does it mean, in terms of the current state of European and world politics, for us to emphasise national representation in the arts sector?
Nicoletta Lambertucci: I was very proud to be the first international curator of the Serbian Pavilion. I am originally Italian, but I have lived in the UK for more than a decade. I am a European in a Brexit country, who curated a pavilion of a nation that is in the process of entering the EU but is not yet part of it. His eclectic imagery encompasses references from diverse cultures and uses emblems of shared history to point at paradoxes in social and political culture.
His paintings and sculptures, embraced by a wall painting charged with the colours of black and white photographs, are strongly connected and create a dialogue that offers a personal and multi-layered understanding of the creation of both personal and shared memory. The national representations are incredible platforms where productive dialogues and challenging artistic projects can take shape.
To me, national pavilions are individual responses for a collective representation of our world. Question 3. What do you hope that your creative decisions in this project will contribute to your work going forward?
